Bing Community
Bing kicked off a weekly mobile blog series Tuesday. This week Andy Chu takes a closer look at the Bing for iPhone app camera scanning feature with the ability to search and compare products. He reminds us that as more and more activities become mobile, comparison shopping will, too, which puts advertisers in a great place to feature products and services. In fact, research shows that 56% of iPhone users compare prices when shopping on their phone, according to Chu.
Semvironment
After being challenged to manually manage more than $7,000 for ad spend in one day, while maintaining somewhat strict average CPC and CPA goals, James Zolman suggests looking into automated PPC bid management software and processes He provides the results of the challenge, along with seven reasons why manual PPC bid management is dead.
The Search Agents
Paul Morana provides three ways to market on Foursquare and actually see a return on investment. He describes the platform for those unfamiliar with it and offers up suggestions on making life a fun-filled game.
Search Engine Journal
Many small businesses generate search traffic and conversions from Google Places listings -- so companies need to monitor accounts to make sure they don't receive a rejected listing, according to David Iwanow. Rejection happens when Google believes someone has inserted incorrect information. Iwanow explains how to police your information, and answers a handful of questions about how the Google team monitors and might flag your Places listing.
aimClear
Receiving so many inquires about vendor referrals, Lauren Litwinka decided to start a master list of online marketing "must considers." She kicks off the industry biz directory with a seed list of more than 30 companies, from 15miles to ClearSaleing to iProspect.
SEOmozBlog
Looking for an SEO job? Danny Dover reveals how he landed a job at SEOmoz.org in hope of providing others with expert advice. For starters, find a niche in a startup looking for interns. Many SEO experts got their first gig by teaching themselves the ins and outs of the trade and/or finding a nonprofit to help. Dover also provides other tips.
SEO by the Sea
Bill Slawski points us to a patent application for an interesting feature that would allow Google to distinguish multiple computers using one IP address. Slawski also tells us how the engine would gather the information, even if the person using the computer disabled the ability to cookie their browser.
Wall Street Journal
Google and Microsoft have begun trying to sell the federal government on cloud computing and email services, but Google's recent missed Los Angeles deadline of June 30 to get the city up and running on an email system could put a damper on the strategy. Google hit a data security roadblock at the Los Angeles Police Department that caused the Mountain View, Calif., company to miss this deadline. The Wall Street Journal reports the two companies want to provide email services to the General Services Administration, the U.S. agency that oversees government procurement and manages federal property, but security …
PPC Blog
Giovanna provides insights on designing a landing page, reminding marketers that each element on the page--words, graphics, links--contributes to conversions. The craft becomes structuring the page to gain traffic and reduce bounce rates. Tactics mentioned include designing a value proposition and defining a call to action.
PPC Hero
Amy Hoffman provides a comparison of third-tier search engines that may not provide as much traffic as the big guys, but can more closely target an audience. She gives us descriptions, and the pros and cons of using them. Among the engines she on the list: Ask.com, Lookstart.com, and eZanga.com.